Real Intent tool looks at paths to hardware vulnerability

Real Intent has developed a tool for identifying potential security issues in chip designs at the sign-off stage.

Sentry Hardware Security analyzes datapaths within the hardware, ensuring those identified as sensitive adhere to security protocols. According to the company, in a single run the tool performs path verifications simultaneously across multiple security specifications that look at the potential for interference or corruption by an attacker and for the possibility of data leaking into unauthorized domains where it can be more easily compromised.

The tool uses parallel processing to allow analysis of a million gates in a matter of minutes, with a 100 million gate design checked in a few hours.

Sentry includes automated security checks, such as finite state machine, design, and sequential checks, as well as support for custom rule decks to look for specific issues. The tool has an integrated debugger, with root cause analysis to identifies the cone of logic associated with each violation. The debugger highlights the relevant path in the design schematic and waveform for the relevant signal, with links back to the RTL source code.

“With today’s hardware devices increasingly interconnected, ensuring hardware security  is even more critical,” said Prakash Narain, president and CEO of Real Intent. “A breach could potentially compromise the entire network, leading to cascading security threats and widespread impact.